Team GB medal target for London 2012 Olympics is fourth place with 48 medals across 12 sports

Team GB has been set a low target of achieving 48 medals at the London 2012
Olympic Games, just one more than the total achieved at the 2008 Beijing
Olympics, by the government's funding body, UK Sport.

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Going for gold: Jessica Ennis is sure to win a medal next month Photo: GETTY IMAGES

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High hopes: Chris Hoy is expected to help Team GB's cyclists bring in the most medalsPhoto: EPA

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Improvement: Team GB is eager to improve on its tally of 47 medals in BeijingPhoto: PA

UK Sport set the target in return for its "no compromise funding policy" – arguing that money equals results. It has given a range of possible medal results from 40 to 70.

"At least 48 medals is a realistic target in at least 12 sports and top four on the medal table," UK Sport chief executive Liz Nicholl said.

"We aspire for them to be more than 48 medals in more than 12 sports," she said.

"We can't be more specific than that."

UK Sport has injected £312 million, mostly National Lottery money, to all Olympic sports over the past four years, specifically to deliver success at its home Games and to cement fourth place on the medal table.

The Minister for Sport Hugh Robertson said the success of the Games would not be measured by how smoothly the public transport was running, but by how successful Team GB is in the medal tally.

"UK Sport has done everything to put Team GB on the start line in the best possible condition," Robertson said.

&lt;noframes&gt;Datatable: Team GB medal targets for London 2012 Olympics&lt;/noframes&gt;

Nicholl said the targets were deliberately vague. "This target range, a broad range is giving us confidence that top four on the medal table is very realistic," she said.

"We won medals in 11 sports in Beijing and we think 20 sports are targeting medals in London, which shows how the sports system has stepped up in the past four years.

"Fourteen sports would be disappointed if they didn't achieve a medal at the Games and we think we can win medals in at least 12 sports, which would be one more than Beijing."

The athletics team, announced earlier this week has been given a target of eight medals, which head coach Charles van Commenee believes is achievable.

The target set by UK Sport is much lower than those forecast by independent forecasts for the team based on world championship and international performances over the past 12 months and boosted by several medals expected to emerge from the home team advantage.

Earlier this year academics from the The Sport Industry Research Centre at Sheffield Hallam University forecast Team GB will win 27 gold medals and 56 medals in total.

The British Olympic Association, which is in charge of Team GB has been reluctant to set a medal table target, seeing no performance advantage in doing so.

BOA chief executive Andy Hunt said finishing fourth on the medal tally behind power brokers China, the US and Russia was an "aspiration".

Team GB collected 47 medals in 11 sports including 19 golds at the last Olympics in Beijing four years ago.